The Fair Journal

[Mortal Man]

Here's an example from Bible Review, 8/6 (Dec 1992), ca. 23??, a colorphoto of bottom of wooden stele of the Priest Harsiese, showing him offering to Reʽ-Horakhty and Atum (10^th – 8^thcenturies BC):

That is interesting. Is the translation online somewhere?

[Robert F. Smith]

That is interesting. Is the translation online somewhere?

There may be, but if so I have not been able to find it. However, I did make a close examination of it, and the eight lines of the main text are clearly taken from a solar hymn within spell 15 of the Book of the Dead (some of it wholesale). You'll note that the scribe consciously employed some direct parallel words and phrases to enhance the chiastic parallel nature of the right and left sides. However, I have seen much tighter and more systematic Egyptian chiasms at the verbal level than this one.

[Mortal Man]

There may be, but if so I have not been able to find it. However, I did make a close examination of it, and the eight lines of the main text are clearly taken from a solar hymn within spell 15 of the Book of the Dead (some of it wholesale). You'll note that the scribe consciously employed some direct parallel words and phrases to enhance the chiastic parallel nature of the right and left sides. However, I have seen much tighter and more systematic Egyptian chiasms at the verbal level than this one.

This seems to fit with their view of the Netherworld as a mirror image of this one. The rising and setting Sun is a natural chiasmus.

[Robert F. Smith]

This seems to fit with their view of the Netherworld as a mirror image of this one. The rising and setting Sun is a natural chiasmus.

Yes, but the Egyptians used such meristic concepts and phrases in poetic, parallel couplets which could be applied in direct or chiastic parallel fashion. In fact, as you probably know, scribes were trained with set, formulaic word and phrase pairs in Ugaritic, Hebrew, and Egyptian.

By the way, since we are discussing Egyptian, I probably ought to mention the existence in Demotic Egyptian of the learned-unable-to-read-sealed-document motif in the tale of “Setne Khamwas and Si-Osire” (Setne II). In that tale, a twelve year old boy named Si-Osire is able to read a sealed document which the learned cannot read (2, 27 – 3, 31).¹ There are a number of other motifs from this story which find their way into both Christian and Jewish tradition.² However, the technical term for a “sealed, dedicated document” is the same in both Egyptian, Hebrew, and most other Afroasiatic tongues: Egyptian ḫtm(t), mḫtmt³ (> Copt. štam, štam) = Hebrew חתם , חותם , חתימה (Gen 38:18,25, Ex28:11, Isa 8:16) = Phoen/Aram. חתם , Arabic ḫatama.

¹ M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, III:142-144, citing F. Ll. Griffith, Stories of the High Priests of Memphis, I (Oxford, 1900).

² Lichtheim, AEL, III:126, citing, for example, H. Gressmann, Vom reichen Mann und armen Lazarus (Berlin, 1918), re Luke 16:19-31.

³ See Book of the Dead spell 69 = Coffin Text 228 (T. G. Allen, Book of the Dead, SAOC 37 [Oriental Institute, 1974]).